Overview of French interaction design

18 May 2011 - 1:17pm

Last reply:
4 years ago

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Benoît Drouillat

2007

Hi,

I have published an article entitled "Interaction design in France: an overview" taken from a speech I'll give tomorrow in Paris for Cumulus Digital Culture workshops. I wanted to share those thoughts with the IxD community and start a discussion about what is your perception of French interaction design. Please don't hesitate to give us some feedbacks.

All the best,

Benoît Drouillat, president of *designers interactifs*, France’s leading professional organization for the digital design industry.

Comments

18 May 2011 - 3:48pm

Dave Malouf

2005

Benoit, this is an amazing resource you created. Kudos.

I'm not sure what kind of response you are hoping for. The presentation (and you detailed transcript) make for a great presentation.

As a USer who is a leader in IxD who tends to get around globally, I'm stunned and embarrassed to read this presentation. France is busy! On that account and this is a regional thing, I'm concerned that you lump in Interaction Design with "digital design". In the US, maybe b/c of our scale we separate out a bit more. This might be to our detriment, but we do tend to separate "interactive design" which tends towards media and art from more functional-centric design which ties IxD more closely to Web Design (on one hand) and Industrial Deisgn on the other. I also found it interesting that while you included Multimedia w/ Interaction design, you separated out Service Design, where that coupling IxD and SD is something that has been quite natural here and in much of the N. Euopean and UK contacts I have had on the topic of SD. But like I said this can be completely regional.

I have another question for you. Why a separate oranization? And what is your relationship if anything to IxDA Paris? Lyon? Is there any value for a French IxD organization to be connected with the global community? Is separation good for variety? necessary for philosophical differences?

-- dave

18 May 2011 - 5:09pm

Benoît Drouillat

2007

Dave, As I write in the presentation, we have a lot of debate in France about the terminology, and that's interesting to read what you say about the semantic nuances. Your point of view is very important because we are all about sharing and discussing. I think you should also read Stephane Vial's presentation.

We are not a "separate" organization, since we founded *di* in 2006, before there was an IxDA french chapter in Paris. We cover a lot of fields from multimedia to interaction design and web design, because our market is just emerging and even for the profession things are not always that clear and separated. SD has its own organization and we're working with them, as well with IxDA Paris and UX Paris that we invited to our last board meeting.

We've met with Berlin IxDA chapter, but we've been "regional" (though we have members in 6 countries) because as you know French market is very specific and had a lot of issues to sort out (profession definition etc.). On the other hand it's difficult for us to go abroad because we (*di*) are a small team and we run with almost small budget and not much time to travel. I don't think we have philosophical differences, it more about the people who should coordinate more often and communicate... That said, we have a lot of interesting publication (10 exactaly) we should translate in English and share with the IxDA community. It took us some time to organize things and understand who is who.

19 May 2011 - 1:44am

architempo

2010

hi Benoit,

nice reading you on IxDA and as already discussed, happy to link IxDA Brussels to "Designers Interactifs". Let's connect with IxDA Paris so we have the French-speaking IxDAers meeting, similar to what's happening in South America - a regional meeting would be good.

Cheers,

Alok NANDI

27 May 2011 - 3:59pm

Gilles DEMARTY

2005

Hi all , Hi Dave, As a leader of IxDA Lyon, i can confirm the monthly meeting hosted in Lyon, France are actually a partnership between IxDA Lyon and designers interactifs and the two groups are sharing a lot.

To the list, I wonder : Who here have worked with a french agency or practitioner ? If so, can you share your experience about it ? Do you recommend it ? Any pain points you noticed ?

On average, i think France's understanding of Ixd, SxD etc is not mature yet.While Benoit's understanding is good and acurate, it is reflecting French's one.

I do hope i am wrong, though.Of course, if any French wants to share their thought too, i'd love to hear their point of view on the subject.

Also, all the publications of Designers Interactifs are great. Anyone who understand french should have a look at them, really.

nice reading you on IxDA and as already discussed, happy to link IxDA Brussels to "Designers Interactifs". Let's connect with IxDA Paris so we have the French-speaking IxDAers meeting, similar to what's happening in South America - a regional meeting would be good.